A very nice and pretty bird of all colors came and sang beside our village. A voice said, 'Listen not to him; pay no heed to his song; look not on his colors.' He went away.

He came again with finer colors and sweeter songs, and he continued to do so until we heard him, and he led us away to die.

The bird is the big knives - the white man [Wasichu]; his songs are his fair words and lying promises; his colors are his paints; the beads and goods he gives for our land.

Woe to us, for the day we hear the big knives' words, we go to our graves.

...a tale of the Santee Sioux [sic]

a young tree...so common. yet, this is not so!

She crouches there...making no noise...no demands...no declarations. until now...now, She seems to have gone wildly berserk waving in no wind yet waving wildly i am thinking, to me... why does She wave to me..?

to Her left there is a Fallen One undercut by swift water so much so that her roots could no longer hold tightly to a world in which there were no dreams, no remembrance of the old...so old the Fallen One was...so many years...so much to pass beneath those boughs...so much to go without notice...so many tears that only i can serve.

but, THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE cause i have seen the Fallen One in all Her glory...have seen the sheltering of the red and the black...have seen the whisperings as the others (you and yours?) have passed below.

i have seen...and that is a beginning.

to my death i will not betray Her.